Legend of the Holy Sword, or Final Fantasy Adventure

I finished this game yesterday. This game makes an interesting topic to write about.

This was a Game Boy game from back in the day. The original Japanese title translates to something like "Legend of the Holy Sword: a Final Fantasy Story". Its full title in the U.S. was "Final Fantasy Adventure". It was a game that had many elements from the early Final Fantasy games, including spells, weapons, and quite a lot of the character sprite designs from the NES/Famicom Final Fantasy games. But it was more of an action RPG and also clearly had inspiration from the early Legend of Zelda games. 

Significantly, it spawned a sequel for the Super NES, which gained a very large following and ended up generating a whole series of games. The Japanese series title references the Holy Sword featured in the games, but after the success of the second game, which was called Secret of Mana in the U.S., the game titles in the U.S. have all featured the word Mana. This first game is the only game to use the Final Fantasy name in it, but I believe most of the Final Fantasy elements in the game were shed (maybe gradually) from the series and the future games are not considered Final Fantasy games.

The first game in the series is fun enough. But I have a feeling that, if not for the sequel, the game wouldn't be remembered as much more than a relatively obscure footnote in the history of Square. (Arguably, that's still true even with its sequels.) As a Game Boy game, it was designed as a shorter, simpler game than its contemporary games for consoles. There's not a lot of depth to it, and the core game play can be quite repetetive, especially in the dungeons. The menus can be tedious to operate, especially when the game requires you to switch your equipment around far more frequently than most RPG's.

But it has a pretty good story to tell. You can save anytime, and it's paced well for a game that you can just pick up and play here and there when you have a few minutes. You meet and travel with just enough interesting NPC characters to keep things interesting. And the way you use different weapons in different circumstances in the game is actually very interesting, even if it is a little bit to use the game's menus to switch between them.

So while it's enjoyable to play, I don't know that it stands out particularly beyond the legacy its sequels made.

This game, interestingly, has been remade twice, under different new titles each time. Sword of Mana for the Game Boy Advance is a remake of this game; so is Adventures of Mana for modern smartphones. I plan to purchase and play the latter quite soon. I understand the remakes are somewhat different from each other. I want to play both, but the smartphone one is a little more accessible right now.

I played this game because I got the "Collection of Mana" for the Switch for my birthday. It has the first three games in the Mana series, the third of which, "Trials of Mana", never saw a release in the U.S. until, I believe, last year, on this very collection as well as a standalone release on the Switch.

I was surprised to discover that I cannot find my original Game Boy copy of this game. I was going through my Game Boy games a couple of days ago and it's not with them. I know I have the game, but I can't think of where it could possibly be if it's not with those other games. It's been well over fifteen years since I played it, and I'm not sure I've physically handled it since, say, moving into this house. I hope I haven't permanently lost it.

I'm moving onto Secret of Mana, which I think still may be the most popular game in the series. I played it through years ago when it was still a new game, but I cannot remember anything at all about the plot and only remember a few details of the game play (one thing I remember is that changing weapons is a lot easier in this game than in its predecessor). I'm just to the first save point, but it's good so far.

The last thought I have about this is that, because of the title localization choices, I did not know for a long time that Secret of Mana was a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure. I actually didn't play Final Fantasy Adventure until years after I played Secret of Mana, but I recognized the similarities between the games' mechanics and then learned their connection. It's one of those quirks in the history of game localization. For Japanese players, it was obvious that Seiken Densetsu 2 was the sequel to Seiken Densetsu, but because of the way the titles were localized, that was lost on US gamers who didn't do further research.

Gaming in COVID, Chipping Away

Well, a lot has been going on since March, in the world in general and in my life. I've been in the interesting position of working from home. In theory, that gives me more time for things I enjoy. But it's been a stressful time. And I find that gaming for stress relief versus gaming for fun is different. Somehow I seem to end up playing fewer games with fewer accomplishments on those games while taking more time, and enjoying it less. And, as I've said before, during the stressful months it's hard to write here.

I finished my Dragon Quest III minimalist challenge. Once my wizard hit level 35, the rest of the game went very quickly. I took her to level 40 outside Samanao and then changed her to a priest. Even at a low level, with high-level Wizard spells I still breezed through dungeons and bosses. I had already done everything outside the Necrogond before I even had changed my Goof-Offs to Sages. I had to level up a little for the Necrogond cave and Baramos after, but it still wasn't much time overall.

Zoma was the part of the challenge I hadn't quite figured out. I levelled till I had all spells for my two Sages and my Wizard turned Priest turned Fighter. I still couldn't beat Zoma with no equipment and no Sphere of Light at my HP levels, and set in for another long grind, before I had a flash of inspiration and discovered a strategy that didn't require further levelling. I made use of the Transform spell, spamming Lightning on Zoma. I did some math and realized that with the right sequence of commands, I could push the odds of winning with that strategy past 10%, and within half a dozen attempts I was successful. 

I've been working on doing Dragon Quest IV solo now. I did the first four chapters with the lead party member solo (Nara was the hardest, but I finally got lucky with the Silver Tarot Cards inflicting Balzack with Surround). I'm now up to Mintos in Chapter 5.

I'm giving in to an old semi-OCD play-style on this playthrough. Like I did in the solo Dragon Warrior III challenge, I'm stepping on every square. For reasons I'm not sure I can describe, I did this in Dragon Warrior I & II and found it an interesting way to mix up the level grind. By the time I started it in Dragon Warrior III solo, I had begun to tire of it but wanted to finish what I'd started. I actually started a solo Dragon Warrior IV around the same time and started off that way too, thinking it would help with the level grind. Once I finish this playthrough I won't do this again in another game.

But I had one other motivation besides mixing up the level grind. I thought it might help me in my search for Small Medals. The last time I played I made a list of the ones I found. Since the game doesn't tell you if you've found them all, I looked up the total number and learned I was missing three. Some time back I booted up the game just to play casually for a short time on my existing game file, and I just happened to search a conspicuous spot and find one I didn't have. I thought that forcing myself to step on each game tile might tune me in to check remaining conspicuous spots.

Small Medal Spoiler Alert: I've already found one that I didn't have, right in the town where I previously mentioned I'm at. So now I only need to find one more.

Once I finish finding them, I'll go back to my Japanese game file at level 99 and finish getting 100% of the items.

I also bought myself an import PS2 to play the remake of Dragon Quest IV. Unfortunately, the copy of the game my wife had previously gifted me wouldn't work on the system and I had to buy a new copy of the game. But I'll play the different versions side by side like I did with the other Dragon Quest games, once I finish my solo game.

I got Collection of Mana for my birthday and I've been playing Final Fantasy Adventure. It's a fun enough game, if a simple one. I've played it before (I have the original cartridge) but I don't remember it well. I just got the Rusty Sword and I'm expecting to finish it very soon. Then I'll replay Secret of Mana, a game I know I played through but which I also can barely remember.

I kind of stalled out on my playthroughs of Banjo Kazooie and Pokemon Blue, but I'll probably pick them up again before too long. I beat Super Mario RPG and have started Paper Mario, but so far I've only been playing when my daughter is around (debating on whether or not to just play anyway, because it seems really good).

I also finally beat Earthbound Beginnings. It's a very interesting game, but it would be a lot more fun if the encounter rate wasn't so terribly high. I didn't make good enough use of Repel Rings because I was afraid of spending too much gold and filling too much of my inventory, but I should have got them anyway. Most other items aren't terribly useful and you get way more gold than you can practically spend.

I want to replay Earthbound, but I need to get my hands on a working Super Nintendo. (I do have a copy of the game from way back when).

I've also been chipping away at unlocking things in old Smash Bros. games again. I finally looked up how to unlock Mewtwo in Melee, because nothing I did was working. I was trying to unlock each character without using the "Play xxx versus matches" method. Turns out (spoiler alert) you can't unlock him without playing versus. Both unlock methods are done with versus games.

I was able to determine that we had unlocked him this way in our older game files, so I was satisfied that I didn't miss out on anything here by looking it up.

There's probably more I'm missing. If I get the oomph to write again before long, I'll try and pick up the slack. I'm really looking for ways to make the whole experience of my games less solitary, and writing about it in a blog is one way to do that. We'll see what happens.